As Christmas approaches, 20% of Brits reveal they have been duped by scam emails from ‘trusted’ brands

Press Release

As Christmas approaches, 20% of Brits reveal they have been duped by scam emails from ‘trusted’ brands

As the dust settles on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and retailers gear up for their biggest month of the year, a DomainTools survey reveals that 20% of British shoppers have been successfully phished, with dire consequences

LONDON, UK, November 28, 2018 - DomainTools, a leader in domain name and DNS-based cyber threat intelligence, today announced the results of a survey of 1,000 UK consumers, which revealed that 20% of British consumers have been caught out by phishing emails pretending to be from a trusted, legitimate brand, but which in reality are used for malicious purposes such as the theft of PII or the installation of malware on a network.

Concerningly, a further 16% of respondents to the survey were unsure whether they had clicked on a scam email – implying they could have been duped by the scams without ever realising.
20% of those who fell victim to scams said that their computers were infected with a virus, 15% had their personal information stolen, and 6% were tricked into purchasing a fake product.

This comes as we enter December, the busiest shopping month of the year for UK consumers. According to the Bank of England, the average UK family spends ￡500 more than their monthly average in December on food, alcohol and presents for loved ones.

“As we enter into the holiday season, it is important for consumers to remain vigilant in the face of potential threats,” said Corin Imai, senior security advisor at DomainTools. “The holiday season allows bad actors the opportunity to maximize their investment in siphoning credentials, financial data, and PII (personally identifiable information), some of the most prized records. Being acutely aware of these attacks by cross-referencing URLs on emails with the legitimate websites of retailers before clicking on any links and being overly cautious can be helpful in not falling for sophisticated attacks.”

The survey was conducted with a group of 1,000 UK consumers, between November 12-13, 2018.

DomainTools helps security analysts turn threat data into threat intelligence. We take indicators from your network, including domains and IPs, and connect them with nearly every active domain on the Internet. Those connections inform risk assessments, help profile attackers, guide online fraud investigations, and map cyber activity to attacker infrastructure. Fortune 1000 companies, global government agencies, and leading security solution vendors use the DomainTools platform as a critical ingredient in their threat investigation and mitigation work. Learn more about how to connect the dots on malicious activity at http://www.1081377.com/ or follow us on Twitter: @domaintools.